1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manually sweeping copier apparatus for processing image data, while being manually swept across mediums, and more particularly, to a manually sweeping copier apparatus for reading image data from an original such as a document, photograph, printed matter, while being swept across the original, and/or for printing image data on a printing medium, while being swept across the printing medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various manually sweeping apparatuses copiers are known. One of them is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,020, issued to Power on Oct. 23, 1973, entitled "Manually Positionable Automatic Printer." This printer comprises a hand-held housing and other components located within the housing, such as a print head, a roll of ink ribbon and an encoder. When the housing is put on a sheet of printing paper, the ink ribbon contacts the printing paper. As the housing is manually moved across the paper, the print head is automatically driven, thereby printing data on the printing paper.
Another of the manually sweeping apparatuses copiers is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,235, issued to Rajchman on Jun. 11, 1985, entitled "Electronic Microcopier Apparatus." The microcopier apparatus comprises a hand-held housing and other components incorporated within the housing, such as a print head, an image sensor, a memory and an encoder. When the housing is manually swept across an original, the image sensor reads the data from the original, and the data is stored into the memory. When the housing is manually moved across a sheet of printing paper, while being kept in contact therewith, the data is read from the memory and subsequently printed on the printing paper.
Since such manually sweeping apparatuses copiers are swept by hand across an original and a sheet of printing paper, the probability is high that the housing fails to contact the original or the paper completely. When the housing is swept across the original, without completely contacting the original, the apparatus cannot read the data correctly from the original. When the housing is moved across the printing paper, without completely contacting the paper, the data cannot be correctly printed on the paper.